About this site
lifecovercalc.com is an independent tool that helps you work out how much life cover your household would actually need — and roughly what it might cost per month — for four markets: the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden and Norway.
It is free, requires no sign-up, and calculates everything in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded or stored.
Who is behind it
The site is built and maintained by an independent developer, not by an insurer, a broker, or a regulated financial adviser. There is no company behind it and no sales team.
We think stating that plainly matters more than a page of manufactured credentials. We are not financial advisers, and nothing on this site is financial advice. What we can honestly claim is that the methodology is transparent, the arithmetic is open and checkable, and we have no financial interest in the number the calculator gives you being larger.
Why the site exists
Most people approach life insurance by picking a round number. £100,000, $500,000, a million kronor — figures chosen because they sound serious rather than because they match anything.
Both directions of that error cost money. Too little cover leaves a partner unable to keep the mortgage going at the worst possible moment. Too much means paying premiums for twenty or thirty years on protection nobody ever needed.
The gap between "a number that sounds right" and "a number derived from your actual commitments" is what this calculator closes, and it takes about a minute.
How the calculation works
The calculator uses DIME, a standard framework used by financial planners:
- Debt — everything outside the mortgage: car finance, personal loans, credit cards
- Income — annual income multiplied by the number of years your household would need to replace it
- Mortgage — the outstanding balance, so the home is paid off outright
- Education — a lump sum per child
From that total it subtracts what you already have: existing policies, employer death-in-service or group life cover, and savings you could realistically spend. The result is the genuine gap, rounded to the increments insurers actually sell in.
Every guide on this site shows its working. If you disagree with an assumption — the number of years of income to replace, say — you can change it and watch the figure move.
Where the premium figures come from
This is the part most calculators are vague about, so we will be specific.
The monthly premium shown is an illustrative order-of-magnitude estimate, not a quote. It is derived from a published rate table held in the site's source code: a monthly cost per unit of cover for each age band, adjusted by a multiplier for policy term and another for nicotine use. Those tables are calibrated to typical market pricing for a healthy applicant on simple level-term cover.
What that means in practice:
- The figure is useful for answering "is this roughly £15 a month or roughly £150?"
- It is not useful as a quote. Real pricing depends on underwriting — your health, family history, occupation, build, and the individual insurer's appetite. Two insurers can price the same applicant very differently.
- The tables do not update in real time. They are periodically reviewed, not live market feeds.
Anywhere the guides quote a price, that price is computed from the same tables the calculator uses, so the prose and the tool cannot drift apart.
Why four markets, and why they are not translations of each other
Life insurance is not one product with four currencies. The default assumptions differ, and so does what the state already provides.
The UK guides cover level versus decreasing term, writing a policy in trust, and death-in-service benefits. The US guides deal with term versus whole life, group coverage, and underwriting routes. The Swedish and Norwegian guides deal with what tjänstegrupplivförsäkring and omstillingsstønad actually cover, and where the gap is left.
Each market's pages are written for that market, not machine-translated from English. Where a market's state provision genuinely reduces how much private cover a household needs, we say so — even though that means recommending a smaller policy.
How the site is funded
By advertising. The site displays ads served by Google AdSense. That is the whole business model.
We do not sell insurance, we are not paid commission, and we have no affiliate arrangements with insurers or brokers. Nobody pays us to be recommended, and there is nothing to recommend — the calculator produces a number, not a product. If that changes, this page will say so before it changes anywhere else.
Details of what advertising means for your data are on the privacy page.
What this site is not
- Not financial advice. It is general information and an arithmetic tool. Before buying cover, consider speaking to a regulated adviser in your country.
- Not a quote engine. No insurer sees your details, because your details never leave your browser.
- Not affiliated with any insurer. No insurer has reviewed, endorsed or funded this content.
Corrections
If a figure looks wrong, a regulation has changed, or a guide is out of date, tell us and we will fix it: hello@lifecovercalc.com. Corrections to published figures are made promptly, and material corrections are dated.
See also the contact page and the terms and disclaimer.